When Alan Weisman traveled the world to learn what would happen if human beings disappeared from earth, he learned that nature would adapt and persevere.
“I am not worried about the planet; it is very resilient and life is a powerful force,” Weisman said Wednesday (March 24). “Even though it faces some tremendous disasters and extinctions, life always come back in amazing and surprising ways.”
Weisman, currently senior radio producer for Homeland Productions, told a packed crowd at West Virginia University about some of his experiences while writing his book, “The World Without Us,” as part of the 2010 David C. Hardesty, Jr. Festival of Ideas.
Weisman told the crowd that he is not an activist, he is simply a journalist – and rather than telling people what they can do to reduce their impact on the planet, he showed them how people are affecting the planet.
Click arrow to hear Weisman discuss being a journalist, not an activist.
“I didn’t write this book because I want the world to go on without people,” he said. “I wrote it so we can see how restorative life is. I wanted to show people how powerful life is and how beautifully nature can heal. Now, the question we need to ask ourselves is – if we take ourselves out, is there a way we can add ourselves back into nature in harmony.”
Click arrow to hear Weisman discuss his book.
When working on his book, he spoke to paleontologists, structural engineers, biologists, art conservators, diamond miners, marine biologists, astrophysicists and Buddhist monks to get a sense of what the world was like before people existed.
“The World Without Us” was translated into more than 30 languages. It was named the Best Nonfiction Book of 2007 by both “Time Magazine” and “Entertainment Weekly,” the #1 Nonfiction Audiobook of 2007 by iTunes; a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction, for the Orion Prize and a Book Sense 2008 Honor Book.
He is currently working on his sixth book, on the planet’s carrying capacity. Weisman is a professor of journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, where he leads an annual field program in international journalism.
Weisman was the fifth speaker at WVU’s 2010 David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas. The lecture series is scheduled to feature nine events and seven outstanding professionals. The series will continue through April.
The series is supported in part by the David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas Endowment, which was established in 2007 by the WVU Foundation, a private, nonprofit corporation that generates, receives and administers private gifts from individuals and organizations for the benefit of WVU.
To view the complete 2010 Festival of Ideas schedule, visit http://festivalofideas.wvu.edu
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